Call me crazy, but I thought the definitions of pre-roll and companion banners were well understood.
Unfortunately, many vendors in the marketplace have begun to offer a menu of what I call video ad sausage - a mix-mash of low quality ad units being packaged as pre-roll.
The simplest example of video ad sausage is running video and a companion banner jointly withing a 300×250 display unit and calling it pre-roll. In order to get to the bottom of this, let’s start with the proper defintion of Pre-roll:
- Pre-roll - A video ad that plays before the start of a video that a user has selected to play shown prior to the user’s selected content starting to play.
Companion Banner - A banner ad that is displayed simultaneously with a video ad, often remaining on the web page after the video ad is complete.
There are a few important ingredients of pre-roll that media buyers must understand in order to avoid getting a plate of video ad sausage.
- User Initiated - if the units loads automatically, without a user selection, it is not pre-roll
- User Selected Content - if the user has no idea what video content is behind the ad, it is not pre-roll
- Companion Banner - if the companion banner is served within the same unit as the video ad, it is not a companion banner
To be more explicit, running auto-start, sound off video ads in 300×250 display inventory is clearly a violation of the definition of pre-roll. Even worse, is running the companion banner also in the same 300×250, thereby not only reducing the value of the pre-roll but also double counting impressions. These tactics are a clear disservice to both agencies and their clients.
To learn more about true pre-roll, talk to your local BrightRoll contact.
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